I grew up in Oakland, California, an important site in the sociaI and racial justice movement. I led my fist demonstration at my Junior High in 1968, organizing a teach in on the Black Panther breakfast program. Now I am a visual artist and use visual imagery, discourse, poetics, convening other artists and creating venues in public spaces to build dialogue and create subtle forms of sea change. Recently this means founding Dream Farm Commonsn an exhibition and project space in downtown Oakland and leading exhibitions that speak to radical engagement with the climate crisis( see our most recent publication https://www.dreamfarmcommons.com/product-page/the-future-emergent-catalogue). Before this I was a nurse working for decades in a low income community and running an arts non profit that deeply engaged with all forms of social justice.

I am a nurse practitioner by training and spent decades working Emergency Rooms and then in Richmond CA, then the third most violent city in the US, where everyone had PTSD. We worked in community, in innovative small actions, in circles , in dialogue, using the arts as a tool for healing. Currently I am in the Hologram Practice, a radically innovative peer to peer feminist health network that attempts to create stable and healthy people who can survive the end of capitalism to build something new.

I want to know what to do. I want to focus my activism from a deep and serious site and cultivate a nonviolent spiritual underpinning to serious action. I am tired of fixating on the environment as the existential criss of our times without doing enough . I want to be in deep conversation with my Hologram team and within Dream Farm Commons.thi smonthI am in residency at DFC, our art space and building a questionnaire posing the question ” what are you willing to do to stop our extinction?” I need to know my answer to the question.

I am a part of Dream Farm Commons, a magnet for socially engaged artists. I am active on my street in downtown Oakland, a culturally rich, diverse neighborhood. I am a part of the Hologram, a network of women in all parts of the globe. I am active in other arts and womens circles , all of whom I believe will be interested in this work.

I will be in the mountains without zoom access August 7 but am otherwise available and comfortable with zoom

I feel that this is possible and realistic for me and am looking forward to the connectivity and exploration.

I have known Cassie for 10 years and work ed closely with her on many projects and shared a deep friendship– the fact that she has worked closely with almost everyone in the group inspires me. I love our group interaction in the hologram and look forward to goin deeper with our team.